Increased nutrients from aquaculture could cause harmful algal blooms in decades to come.
Lex Bouwman of the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency in Bilthoven and his team analysed the yearly production of farmed seafood species using data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. They estimated the amounts and types of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, that aquaculture adds to coastal areas around the world today and predicted impacts for 2050 using scenarios from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
Although most nutrient input to coastal seas comes from rivers that run through farmland, inputs from aquaculture are growing. In some Chinese provinces, for instance, more than 20% of the dissolved nutrients in coastal waters derive from seafood farming.
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Nutrient threat of seafood farms. Nature 503, 314 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/503314d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/503314d
